HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-03-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2000. PAGE 5.
A cross too heavy to
bear
A long time ago, in another life, I was lucky
enough one summer to take a gypsy trip right
across Canada. Fetched up one day in a tiny
town the name of which I don’t remember,
near the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia border.
Acadian country. The French started pioneer
colonies here back in the late 1500s.
It’s still very French. The day I passed
through that nameless place was market day.
The people were out in throngs.
There were fiddlers and dancers. There were
booths and stalls all along the main street and
townsfolk were offering jams, jellies,
preserves, woodcarvings, folk art doodads for
the front yard. And in one stall, quilts.
Including the most beautiful quilt I had ever
laid eyes on. It was blinding white, with a
single jet-black emblem repeated over and
over. The quilt was meticulously stitched;
impeccably finished ... I had just one small
problem with it. The repeated black design that
was repeated all over the quilt?
Swastikas. The crooked cross that Hitler and
his thugs made world famous.
The beautiful quilt was covered with
swastikas.
Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. Some of my
best friends, etc. - and anyway, who would
want to be associated in any way with the
single most repellent symbol of the 20th
International Scene
Shake-down (up) in
auto industry
Every once in a while I bring you up to
date on what is happening in the international
world of automobile manufacturing, just so
you know where your favourite make is going
to be the next time that you get around to
buying a car.
One of the most important observations is
that there was too much capacity in the
industry as a whole and sooner or later the
manufacturers were going to have to get
around to facing this problem.
Well, they have and the result has been a lot
of activity as the various companies look at
what the future holds for them and how they
can best play the game of musical chairs.
One might say that the dance started with
Daimler and Chrysler deciding that they could
do the auto waltz together and as a result we
have Daimler-Chrysler. Depending on where
you are standing, you could conclude that
either one or the other is doing most of the
leading but my bet is on Daimler emerging as
top dog. It cannot be a company of equals since
such alliances have as much chance of
succeeding as getting a Chrysler car to run on
sauerkraut juice.
While this is being sorted out, D-C is taking
a long, hard look at Mitsubishi, an ailing
Japanese producer.
Talk of alliances brings us around to GM,
currently number one in size but in efficiency
lagging behind its American competitors. It
century?
Not me, Jack.
And I had to wonder about what Nazoid
thoughts .night be percolating among the
citizenry in that bucolic little burg.
Turps out I was overly paranoid, as usual.
The Acadians knew, instinctively perhaps,
that the swastika was a revered symbol
thousands of years before the world ever heard
of Nazis.
Ancients in India drew swastikas to
represent the trajectory of the sun across the
sky. Over generations, the swastika evolved
into a kind of stylized solar wheel - an emblem
of the sun’s pureness and power of
regeneration.
Swastikas have appeared on Persian carpets,
as garlands around the sacred Buddha - even
on Greek and Cretan coins of antiquity.
Here in North America, Indians used dyes
and pigments to trace swastikas onto
petroglyphs. Near as anthropologists can
figure, the New World swastika represented the
four directions - the ones we call north, south,
east and west.
There’s even a Gentile connection to the
swastika. In the time of the Romans,
underground Christians disguised their
familiar cross as a swastika to avoid religious
persecution.
Billy Graham and the swastika? Hard to
picture. Nevertheless, it can’t be denied that
the swastika has a long and honourable history
as a symbol of peace and fruitfulness. It was
By Raymond Canon
has just entered into an alliance with Fiat, the
Italian manufacturer which is not in very good
shape right now. (How many Fiats have you
seen lately?)
GM has recently announced that it is taking
a 20 per cent position in Fiat in return for five
percent of its own shares.
This makes Fiat the biggest single
shareholder in GM but the fine print reveals
that GM has the option of buying the rest of
Fiat between 2003 and 2008.
What exists now may be called an
alliance but it is unlikely to last that way for
very long.
They will do a number of things together but
they will not share their assembly capacity and
they will compete in every sector except North
America where GM will help to sell Fiat’s Alfa
Romeo cars. None of their factories in Europe
will be closed which removes an excellent
chance of cutting costs, a vital aspect of
today’s manufacturing world.
GM has been carrying on other little dances,
strengthening long-term alliances with Isuzu
and Suzuki (Cami plant in Ingersoll). More
recently it has added Fuji (which makes the
Subaru). Not stopping there it has gained full
control of Saab in Europe and is trying to
acquire another lame-duck Daewoo of South
Korea.
All this gives GM about one-quarter of the
world market.
While all this is going on Ford has
strengthened its position by increasing its
productivity and by strengthening its
relationship with Mazda which it more or less
owns anyway since one of Ford’s executives is
the swastikas bad fortune (and ours) that, in the
1920s, the stark and simple design with a
history of positive associations caught the eye
of a demented paperhanger from Austria.
Hitler appropriated the swastika, claiming it as
an emblem of Aryan superiority.
Amazing what power a simple symbol can
have. Away back in the early years of the 20th
century, gold seekers and hard rock miners
settled in a small community in Northern
Ontario, near Kirkland Lake. They called it
Swastika, and Swastika it was for the next 40
years, until loathing for the Nazi dictator
persuaded the town fathers to bury the name of
their town and re-christen it with something
more patriotic.
Thus, the town of Swastika renamed itself
Winston, to honour Winston Churchill, the
man whose image was about as far from Adolf
Hitler as it was possible to get.
Here we are in a new millennium. The Beast
of Berlin has been dead for better than half a
century and yet his malevolent effect on a
morsel of graphic art lives on.
Aside from skinheads and bikers with low
foreheads, the very sight of the swastika still
inspires revulsion wherever it arises.
Pity. It’s a fine emblem with (aside from one
brief historical blotch) an honourable pedigree.
I hope one day we can reclaim it and return it
to its rightful significance.
Of course it will take guts.
The kind of guts I wish I’d had when I had a
chance to buy that Acadian quilt.
now the chief executive officer of the Japanese
firm which is trying to get out from rather
severe losses of late.
Mazda, by the way, makes a very good
line of cars (The Canons drive a 626 and a
Protege and are very pleased with both of
them).
There will be other moves as well. Renault
of France is in bed with Nissan of Japan,
another ailing company and you can also look
for the other Korean companies to line up with
some of their bigger brothers in the business as
their losses mount. Kia is trying to introduce
its cars in Canada, but we, like that of many
other countries, are looking at a pretty
saturated market and so far I have not seen any
advantage that Kia has that the other
manufacturers don’t.
One thing bears repeating. Right now I
would hazard the guess that, regardless of the
name which is on the front of your car, you
have no idea how many countries contributed
to the parts that went into the assembly of that
car.
There is no longer too much in the way of a
national car, a point brought out vividly when
an American bragged on prime time TV that
one new product he liked and was
recommending could be considered the pride
of America. It turned out that it had been
produced in Windsor.
Maybe his geography was bad and he
thought this Canadian city was indeed in the
United States. It would not be the first time
such mistakes were made.
In the meantime, anybody seen a Lada
lately?
... I know who you are
For most boomers it's a familiar scene. A
group of pre-pubescents sit huddled around the
telephone receiver a picture of innocence in
hair curlers and baby dolls. Their giggles are
quickly quelled as the ringing stops and an
adult voice intones a‘n unsuspecting greeting.
“I saw what you did and I know who you
are,” counters the whispering child, while her
counterparts snicker. An abrupt disconnection
and a grown-up stands disgruntled, disgusted
or dismayed, while at the other end of the line
is the unrestrained hilarity of youth having
pulled off a telephone prank.
This particular bit of jocularity was a
favourite of my friends and I after we saw a
movie bearing the same name as the statement
made to our unwitting victim. It was a film that
had terrified us, which only added to the fun. It
was certainly the most daring of its kind.
Telephone mischief was actually pretty
innocent. With the exception of the one just
noted with its mildly sinister, possibly
suggestive overtones, the sole purpose was
disruption of an adult life. The ‘‘Is your
refrigerator running? Well, get it before it runs
out the front door.” was at worst annoying.
Pranks such as this carried no threat, gave no
cause to be fearful.
Unfortunately it would seem even this
harmless childish behaviour has taken on the
evil of today's society. The other evening some
all too rare family time at our home was
interrupted by the jangle of that cursed
invention of Alexander Graham Bell. “We
have planted a bomb in your house which will
detonate in 10 seconds,” a high-pitched voice
noted, before beginning the countdown. “Ten,
nine, eight, seven, six five, four, three, two,
one, Goodbye!”
At first, we had the typical response, shaking
our heads, acknowledging our place in
victimdom. But this infantile joke had taken an
ominous tone. As silly as it was, it suggested
an act of violence.
And though I didn’t take it seriously, it
should be noted, because as we are all too
sadly aware, the ingenuous today are capable
of violence. When a six-year-old child can
walk into a classroom and shoot another
student point blank nothing can be taken
lightly. When a two-year-old seeing another
toddler kicking yet another little one, urges her
on saying, “Do it again Yinda, I don’t yike
her,” it’s time to pay attention. This tiny
innocent could barely articulate, but she
already knows hate.
In my job I meet a lot of angry adults; I don’t
recall it being that way when I was young. But
our children learn from example and sorry to
say while movies and television may be
playing a part by exposing them to and
glamorizing violence, society has to show
them that the best ways are the tolerant ways.
Violence anywhere, in hockey, in school, is not
a joking matter, but totally unacceptable. This
is the message we have to give our children.
Lead by example, talk about feelings, theirs
and yours. Generally, when they’re little they
still listen to us.
Oh, yes, and while we’re talking to them we
might want to remind them that unlike the
good old days, we now have call display and
*69. When you play on the phone, the victim
too can see what you did and knows who you
are.